Giants
Not to be confused with tallmen, the so-called Black Giants "If a giantess lays an egg in the woods, does anyone hear her eat it?" — Groll Halfsmith A giant is a member of a near-human ape-like people from this Earth, and that Earth. Giants have the appearance of very large humans (ranging in height from 280 centimeters to 400 centimeters) with stocky, muscular builds, shaggy hair, sloping heads, long noses with big nostrils, doe-like ears, fangs, claws and talons, legs that are proportionally both longer and thicker than those of other humanoids, and massive padded feet. The very smallest of giantesses can comfortably mate with the very largest human males to produce viable offspring, the technically half-human giantsons, whom are all fertile. Giants are noted as being slightly less intelligent than humans, though this is misleading as giants reach emotional and physical maturity much faster than humans, have better and more accurate memories, and most-surprisingly, are more logical than humans. This results in giants loving puzzles, riddles, and maths, and being very adept at picking up new languages, including sign languages. Giants also love to sing, and the slope-headed giants of Slope-head Isle sing in deep throaty rumbles of ancient heroes. Giantsons on the other hand, are noted as being even less intelligent than giants. They have normal human proportions, but are generally taller and heavier than average. Giantsons' pregnancies are twice as likely to result in any children being born as hornmen, and 400% more likely to result in children born with harelips. Small hidden populations of giants live all over this and that Earth, with the largest on Slope-headed Isle being so large and remote that they do not hide from the outside world, and have largely forgotten about it. Smaller giantesses are permitted to leave giant villages to go off foraging, leading to legends of woman-warriors all over both these worlds. These giantesses are taught memory erasure spells, or to kill anyone who sees them. In these events, entire giant villages have been known to flee before any human tailors. Giants are not unknown, but are hated and reviled by humans, who hunt them down wherever they find them. Occasionally however, giantsons are born to a human father, and giantess mother. These are augurs of doom for these villages, which are eventually overrun with giantsons who integrate into the general human population. Giantsons are much, much stronger than even "dwarf giants" (that is to say members of the giant species afflicted with dwarfism - always female, and generally either abandoned in the woods by their parents, cast out upon reaching adulthood, or sent to live among humans) roughly their size would be. In one notable instance, the Clan Katar of the Horn of Yock's Lass, actively sought out giantsons, and giants living in the Far North to mate with them, eventually creating a single clan of normal humans with superhuman strength, which still sometimes pops up in their descendants. Giants were uninvolved in the War for 30,000 years, and were dispersed along with humankind. About 1 in every 10,000,000 human births results in a giant. Most of these are terminated, are somehow miscarried, or are otherwise stillborn. A few rare, precious giants, are raised among humankind, however. By the time of Huron Space, the population of humans is so astoundingly, mind-bogglingly big that there are communities of hundreds of thousands of giants on some worlds. Some of these have pursued higher education, which takes them longer than an average human, but because of their excellent memory, results in them generally becoming experts in their fields. Some giants have pursued biological sciences, and have even called for giants to be declared part of humankind. Giants are genetically indistinguishable from humans, so this may be valid. Category:Peoples Category:Biology Category:Near-humankind